Premiere, three-part series investigates water wars, on March 21st, 2017, at 6pm PT, 9pm ET, on DirecTV

By Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Daily Star) 2017/3/21 – “With the drought crisis in California,” saysParched producer Alex Gibney. “America is starting to wake up to a future where fresh drinking water is scarce, expensive and beyond our control. With the global reach of National Geographic, we hope to stress the urgency and, now more than ever, we need to understand what’s literally under the surface.”

Parched investigates water wars from West Virginia and Michigan to Syria and India. The series explores the corporate, political and social interests that are responsible for our water-limited future.

Today, more than 500 million people around the world lack access to clean drinking water. Global warming, drought, overconsumption, corporate greed, terrorism and political corruption have all contributed to a stark reality where fresh water is scarce, expensive and not a guaranteed human right.

Programming schedules as follows:

March 21st, 2017, at 6pm PT, 9pm ET Parched: Money Flow premiere

Many people know about the disaster in Flint, Michigan, where thousands were poisoned by government negligence, but not so many know that this tragedy is part of a larger, much lesser known story that began in Detroit. When the financial crisis hit in 2008, fast-rising water fees resulted in thousands of residents without access to water in their homes, and precipitated Flint’s disastrous decision to draw water from the Flint River. This episode explores an alarming trend in the water sector, where Wall Street banks control municipalities, ultimately holding the everyday American’s water supply in their grip.

March 28th, 2017, at 6pm PT, 9pm ET Parched: Toxic Waters premiere

In West Virginia, a cattle farmer traces the deterioration of his livestock to illegal dumping on the Ohio River in in the 1980s, unraveling a corporate conspiracy by DuPont that leaves thousands at risk. In California’s Central Valley, oil companies have moved into agricultural areas, but when heavy lobbying results in lax oversight and regulation, the result is water contamination.

This episode of Parched zeros in on the world’s most vulnerable hot spots for water-related conflict. In the shadowy outskirts of India’s capital city, a powerful water mafia steals water from government and private reserves, and sells it to those who can pay the hefty price. Meanwhile in Syria, ISIS uses the region’s limited water supply as a weapon, capturing dams and leaving the locals who depend on them helpless. Get a foreboding look at the world’s future through the lens of global water supply.